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Amanda Ripley (character)
Amanda "Amy" Ripley is a fictional character in the ''Alien'' franchise. The daughter of the protagonist of the film series, Ellen Ripley, an elderly Amanda is first introduced in the extended version of Aliens. Amanda is also the protagonist of the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation, which is set 42 years prior to Aliens. Conception and creation A deleted scene from the film Aliens, which was later included on DVD releases, reveals that Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) has a daughter, Amanda. She was ten years old during the events of Alien, but grew up, married (taking on the surname McClaren) and died during her mother's 57-year stasis between the events of the first two films. A picture of Amanda as an elderly adult is shown to Ripley. The picture is actually Weaver's real-life mother, Elizabeth Inglis. The scene was cut from the film due to 20th Century Fox's concerns about length. Weaver was furious at the removal, considering it to be crucial to Ellen Ripley's character development in the film, taking on a protective mother role to the young character Rebecca "Newt" Jorden. In James Cameron's 1983 Alien II treatment for what would become Aliens, Amanda (then unnamed) was alive, but old and crippled. When her mother contacted her from the Gateway Station, Amanda blames her for her absence."Alien II" (original treatment) by James Cameron For the video game Alien: Isolation, most early development was done with a female test dummy, with it being "almost just an assumption" that the lead would be a female character. The game chose to focus on Amanda. The developers wanted Amanda to echo some of her mother's traits, while being her own distinct character. Examples given of how she mirrored Ellen Ripley included her determination, while also initially being colder than Ellen. Isolation utilised performance-capture acting in an attempt to bring believability to its characters. Fictional biography Amanda was conceived during a layover between haulage trips. Though this contravened Weyland-Yutani policy, her mother was not disciplined and the pregnancy was allowed to come to term.Crew dossier seen in Aliens, available as bonus feature on Alien Anthology Blu-ray Amanda was delivered in a home birth. She was ten years old when Ellen Ripley disappeared aboard the Nostromo. According to the canonical novel Alien: Out of the Shadows, Amanda's father walked out on her and Ellen when Amanda was three years old. Ripley had promised Amanda that she would be home for her 11th birthday. In Alien: Isolation, Amanda Ripley is an engineer for Weyland-Yutani (W-Y). Ripley was approached by W-Y synthetic Christopher Samuels, who informed her that the flight recorder of the Nostromo had been discovered by a salvage ship, the Anesidora, and taken to Sevastopol Station, a supply depot in orbit around the gas giant KG348. Believing that it will provide her closure, Ripley accepts a place on the recovery team, travelling on the W-Y ship Torrens. According to Aliens, Amanda at some point married, taking on the surname McClaren, but had no children - that fact may, however, be a lie as Ellen had no other children and Alan Decker is said to be a descendant of hers and the only place he could come from is Amanda - and died on December 23, 2178In Alien, the Nostromo is said to be 10 months from Earth when it sets down on LV-426, in June 2122, meaning it was originally scheduled to return to Earth some time around April 2123. In Aliens, Ripley tells Burke she promised Amanda she would be back for her 11th birthday. It's safe to assume this birthday would have fallen fairly soon after the Nostromo was supposed to return, certainly some time that year, thus if Amanda turned 11 in 2123, she must have been born in 2112The year of death on the photograph seen in Aliens makes no sense if the film takes place in 2179. If Amanda turned 11 in 2123, she would have died age 66 in 2178. from cancer. Ripley was cremated and interred at Westlake Repository, Little Chute, Wisconsin. Reception The character's critical reception was mixed. Despite criticizing much of Isolation, Ryan McCaffrey from IGN stated that Amanda has a "clearly defined tough-as-nails personality befitting of her mother." Danielle Riendeau of Polygon praised Amanda from a feminist perspective as a worthy successor to, as well as the best female protagonist since, Ellen Ripley. Riendeau would later go on to call 2014 "the year women characters rule" for the number of prominent women in video games, further praising the game's ability to tie playing Amanda into its gameplay. Wired s Matt Peckham criticised the choice to have the player character as Ellen's daughter, calling it a "narrative cheat", and found the ultimate pay-off "hurried and a little forced." Peckham praised having a female player character, however, calling it "wonderful playing as a strong, clever, self-reliant woman." Jeff Marchiafava from Game Informer criticised the character, feeling that she "exhibits little growth or personality." Blake Peterson, writing for Game Revolution, felt the game failed to ever develop Amanda or connect the player to her emotionally, commenting that she "soon feels like a placeholder" for the more iconic Ellen Ripley. References Category:Alien (franchise) characters Category:First-person shooter characters Category:Female video game characters Category:Science fiction film characters Category:Science fiction video game characters Category:Fictional engineers Category:Fictional sole survivors Category:Fictional cryonically preserved characters Category:Fictional orphans Category:Fictional cancer patients Category:Fictional deceased Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1986 Category:Fictional characters introduced in 2014